Evaluation of Reflexology as an adjunctive therapy in children with spastic cerebral palsy

The proposed research project was a randomized clinical trial in determining the efficacy of reflexology therapy in addition to the ongoing conventional therapy in children with spastic cerebral palsy. Cerebral Palsy describes a group of disorders of the development of movement and posture, causing activity limitations that are attributed to non-progressive disturbances that occurred in the developing fetal or infant brain. The motor disorders of cerebral palsy are often accompanied by disturbances of sensation, cognition, communication, perception and/or by a seizure disorder. Spastic cerebral palsy is the most common form of Cerebral Palsy. The incidence is 2 to 2.5 per 1000 live births. It is estimated that there are 25, 00,000 persons with cerebral palsy in India. Cerebral palsy cannot be cured but by multi disciplinary management all the problems can be addressed. The goals of management should be to use appropriate combinations of interventions (e.g., developmental, physical, medical, surgical, chemical and technical modalities) to promote function, to prevent secondary impairments and to increase the childs developmental capabilities. In recent time there has been considerable interest in "complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) among the population in Asia, UK, USA and other parts of globe which has been combined with the conventional therapies treatment so that the individual patient can get maximum benefits. It has been observed that even the adequate pharmacological therapies and surgical procedure do not offer a complete management of spastic cerebral palsy. In view of this, the proposed study presents another mode of intervention in addition to the existing ones to observe the effect of reflexology therapy in the management of spastic cerebral palsy. This will be helpful in establishing reflexology as a low cost medical system with least side effect. This study is a Randomized, parallel group, active controlled trial comparing the efficacy of reflexology + conventional therapy in children with spastic cerebral palsy to the conventional therapy alone for a period of six months in 176 patients with spastic cerebral palsy that will be conducted at Dept of Biophysics, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi. The primary outcome measure will be the change in Gross Motor Function Measure (GMFM) score at the end of six months from the date of patients enrollment for this study. The secondary outcome measure will be the change in spasticity in children with spastic cerebral palsy as measured by Modified Ashworth Scale (MAS) and to measure the Range of Motion (ROM) by Goniometry at the end of six months.